Also, it is not uncommon practice in Thailand for lawyers to pay bribes to judges to hand down lighter sentences which can attract media criticism thereby exposing the judges involved in corruption. Self-censorship Self-censorship has a long tradition in Thailand. It is resorted to mostly from fear of being charged with a violation of lèse majesté statutes. Former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was repeatedly accused of using his political and economic power to silence dissenting voices and curbing freedom of speech stemming from his direct authority over state-owned TV stations coupled with his family owning the other broadcast TV channels. Responding to critics, he sold all of his family's interests in the broadcast media in 2006. Criticisms of the Thai government range from the frequent use of libel suits against critics to coercion leading to self-censorship. Self-censorship has been used as an excuse for the central government or administrative branch to interfere in people's communications infrastructure. All radio and television stations in Thailand operate at the will of the government. In 2003, the Thai Journalists Association (TJA) rapped the spread of self-censorship as well as the "sophisticated and subversive means" used by the authorities to control the media, fearing they would turn into propaganda mouthpieces of the Thaksin government. On the occasion of the World Press Freedom Day 2006, the TJA labeled the situation of press freedom in Thailand as an "era of fear and hatred". Channel 3 (Thailand) published a very short statement saying that the drama series "Nua Mek" which depicted corrupt politicians, a fictitious prime minister, and his crooked deputy, scheduled to air on Friday, 11 January 2013, was deemed "inappropriate" and that another drama series would be aired instead. Warathep Rattanakorn, of the Office of the Prime Minister, responsible for overseeing all state media, insisted that there was no interference from the government or MCOT (the Mass Communications Organisation of Thailand, which issued the concession to privately owned Channel 3.) Libel suits The threat of libel suits has long been used to silence government critics. The government of Thaksin Shinawatra filed numerous libel suits against government critics, in what the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) called "Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's continued use of criminal defamation charges to silence media criticism of his government". Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch's Asia Division, noted that "it's impossible to distinguish a libel suit from an attempt